That Perfect Someone (10 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Y
OU MUST BE SO
excited,” Helene Miller said to her daughter. “He’s such a fine, handsome lad. And a lord! You’ll be a lady just like your aunt Addie was!”

Julia’s mother was certainly excited about it. She so rarely made up her mind about anything, but, apparently, this engagement was the one exception because she’d been in favor of it from the beginning. Julia was excited about it, too, mostly because her mother’s excitement was contagious. As long as all she and her mother did was talk about it, Julia was content. The earl’s son did sound like a wonderful boy. But marriage was so far off. Honestly, she’d rather have a new doll than a husband.

She’d never not known about this splendid boy she was promised to. His father actually sent progress reports to her father, and Gerald related them to her. Lord Richard was doing well in school. Lord Richard got a new dog. She wanted one, too. Lord Richard caught a huge fish in his lake. Why had no one ever taken her fishing? Her parents wanted her to feel as if she knew Lord Richard before she met him. It seemed to work.

But meeting him was so far off that she never really thought about it. Then the day arrived soon after her fifth birthday, and her reaction wasn’t the least bit expected. On that long ride to Willow Woods, the Earl of Manford’s estate near Manchester, she got so nervous that she broke out in a rash that splotched her cheeks bright red. Her mother cried when she noticed. Gerald had chuckled at them both for being silly. Julia couldn’t even say why she was so nervous. Because she wanted Richard to like her and was afraid he wouldn’t? Because he’d never truly seemed real to her until then?

Julia almost had to be dragged into that big mansion in the country. Then she was awed by the size of Willow Woods as they were led through some of the rooms on the way to the earl and she caught glimpses of other rooms. Her home was big, but not like this. Here every single room was large, and the entire house was spread out wide as well as tall. Everything blended in so well, antique paintings that had to be centuries old, huge crystal chandeliers, muted wall coverings that you barely noticed. Nothing was gaudy and glittering like the fancy French decor her mother preferred.

She’d met the earl before, but she had only the vaguest memory of his visiting once just prior to her fourth birthday to see how she was turning out, since he hadn’t seen her since she was a baby. He hadn’t brought his son with him on that visit. The boy wasn’t there at Willow Woods when they arrived, either. He was outside with his dog. She was so relieved! She almost cried.

“Go introduce yourself, Julie,” Helene urged her. “You two will get along famously. I know it!”

Her father moved to accompany her, but Helene put a hand on his arm. “They’ll be more relaxed if they don’t feel constrained by our presence,” Helene said, as if Julia couldn’t hear her. Her mother often talked about her in her presence as if she didn’t have ears. “Let this first meeting be natural for them.”

Julia walked down the lawn with leaden feet. What was she supposed to say to the boy? She could talk about his dog and mention that she had three. One hadn’t been enough for her. She could tell him about the pony she’d just got and that her riding lessons were to begin that summer. Or she could ask him to teach her how to fish! Her father had said that he would teach her soon, though her mother had complained that it wasn’t something appropriate for her to learn. But a lake was right there on the property beyond the boy, a big one, and she knew he knew all about fishing.

He hadn’t noticed her yet, but as she got closer to him, she realized how big he was, twice her height! She hadn’t expected that. She didn’t know any other ten-year-olds. With his short black hair and finely cut jacket, he looked like a miniature adult, while she was still dressed in a little girl’s shapeless frock. He was as handsome as they’d told her, perfect in every way, though perhaps a little thin. But that didn’t count. She was thin, too.

Her steps slowed as she became dazzled by this first sight of her fiancé. When he finally noticed her, she instantly looked down at the ground. She could have walked off into the lake for all the attention she was paying to where she was going. She felt so nervous again she could almost feel more rashes breaking out on her cheeks. But she continued walking, her head down, until she reached him and could see his legs from beneath the rim of her bonnet.

“So you’re the fat purse I’m supposed to marry?” he said to her.

She glanced up at him, not understanding what he meant by that. She wasn’t fat.

“What a pity,” he added in a nasty tone as he stared down at her cheeks. “At least you could have been pretty. That might have made this match a little more tolerable.”

She didn’t quite understand condescension or snobbery yet, but she did understand that he didn’t like her. She’d been so apprehensive about meeting him, terrified, really, and now her feelings were so hurt she burst into tears. Then mortified that she was crying, she was overcome by anger, the likes of which she’d never before experienced, and she flew at him, pummeling him with her fists.

Her parents had had to drag her off him. They were upset, too. She recalled her father’s saying that he might not have done such a wonderful thing for her after all, in arranging a marriage to an earl’s son. But Richard’s father just laughed about the incident, assuring her parents that children were just being children. Julia had been unable to calm down until she was in the coach on the way home.

Helene simply didn’t know how to deal with her daughter’s temper tantrums, and there were plenty of them after that day—whenever she or Gerald suggested another visit to Willow Woods. Helene was frantic that Julia was going to ruin the family socially by insulting nobles. Gerald had snapped at his wife to stop it, that the match was a mistake and he would never have agreed to it if she didn’t think so damned highly of those very same nobles. Helene had always been somewhat indecisive, but she became incapable of making any decisions after that.

Julia did have to meet Richard Allen again, but a whole year passed before that happened. It took that long for her not to burst into tears and start screaming when the suggestion of another visit was made. She still wasn’t old enough to understand how their first meeting had gone awry, but she did guess that it had to do with their both being so apprehensive about it. She also understood snobbery by then and realized that’s exactly what he was, a snob, though she hoped she might be able to forgive him for it so they could start anew. She must have imagined a thousand such meetings where he apologized and was as wonderful as he ought to be.

None of which happened when the first words out of his mouth were “You hit me again and I’ll hit you back.”

But he didn’t say that to her until after they’d been in the same room with their parents and his brother, Charles, for nearly an hour. The adults were afraid to leave them alone again. Almost by silent agreement, Julia and Richard had been on their best behavior. It had been easy as long as they didn’t speak to each other. Julia took it a step further by pretending Richard wasn’t there and talking to Charles instead.

With no violence erupting this time, their parents began to relax. The men even went off to play a game of billiards. Left alone with the two boys and her uncontrollable daughter, Helene was soon having a nervous reaction and had to excuse herself.

The moment she left the room, Charles, who was three years older than Richard, sighed in boredom and said he had better things to do. Suddenly the engaged children were alone, staring at each other warily, and Richard gave her that warning about hitting her.

“You’d hit a girl?” she asked.

“You’re not a girl, you’re a little monster. I got a beating because
you
attacked me. Father didn’t believe that I didn’t provoke it.”

“You did start it, and I’m glad he beat you,” she replied, her lip already beginning to tremble.

“You little witch, do you even know what it’s like to be beaten?” he snarled. “You don’t, do you? Well, it bloody well hurts!”

With him shouting at her, she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. Oh, God, she was behaving like a crybaby in his presence again! They were never going to like each other, yet they were stuck with each other!

She latched onto the finger he was angrily shaking in her face and bit it as hard as she could. He was furious, but he didn’t bite her back or hit her. Instead he dragged her by her pigtails out of the house straight down to the lake behind Willow Woods! Then he tossed her off the little fishing-boat dock into the water. She couldn’t swim, so she flailed around, panicking as she tried to scream. He’d been even more furious that he’d had to wade through the cold water to drag her back out. With both of them soaking wet there was no way to hide what had happened from their parents. Her parents took her straight home. She hoped Richard got another beating.

Time passed. The friendship she developed with her neighbor Carol progressed until they became best friends. She never thought about Richard when she was with Carol, and they became inseparable. She did know that her father had tried again to get her out of that horrible engagement. She’d heard her parents talking about it and how bitter Gerald was that the earl wasn’t going to release them. Her mother was still in favor of the match, though, and would always remind her father that the children were bound to grow out of their animosity. She begged him to give it time and not to do anything rash, and he finally agreed that it wasn’t necessary to pick a big fight with the earl over a matter that might work out later.

By the time Julia was seven, she’d grown a bit but was still quite thin. She was also so sure that she was mature enough now to deal with her offensive fiancé without letting her emotions get out of hand that she even suggested another visit. Her mother was delighted. She was still expecting great things to come of the match.

They were going to spend the entire weekend at Willow Woods this trip. The children weren’t going to be left alone for even a moment.

The visit started off pleasantly enough. Charles played a game of checkers with her. She liked him. He was as handsome as his brother, just much older, though not quite an adult yet. She was sure he let her win, but it put her in a good mood anyway. Then Richard took his place, sitting across the table from her. They’d never been so close to each other without violence erupting.

“My friends call me Julie,” she shyly told her fiancé as their first game of checkers progressed. “Not so many syl’bles as Julia.”

“No, that’s still too much work for the tongue,” he replied without glancing up. “I like Jewels better. Rich and Jewels, we make a wealthy couple! Get it?”

Unfortunately she did. “I don’t like it.”

“Wasn’t asking your permission. And it’s too bloody on the mark, Rich and Jewels. That’s all we’re good for, isn’t it? To fill my father’s coffers with wealth.”

“I said I don’t like it,” she hissed at him.

“Too bad, Jewels.”

He would call her that from then on, and every single time it made her see red, just as it did that day. She abruptly left the table and went out on the terrace to count to one hundred. Her nanny had taught her that trick and it was working! Exactly what a mature young lady would do! She hadn’t kicked him under the table. She hadn’t flipped the table over into his lap. She hadn’t even thrown the checkers at him, which would have hurt because they were made of painted heavy metal. She’d left the room instead. When she returned, she didn’t expect him to still be sitting at the little game table waiting for her.

Stiffly, she rejoined him. He promptly won that game. She demanded another. She thought he’d refuse but he didn’t. She wished he had. He beat her every single game and smirked about it. She refused to give up trying and kept insisting on another round, and another, right up until dinner.

They’d managed to get through the day without fighting. She’d restrained herself and had ignored his insults. She was mature enough to deal with him now and was so proud of herself!

She went straight to bed after dinner and, glowing with success, even went straight to sleep. Which was unfortunate because she arose too early the next morning, before the adults did. Richard walked into the breakfast room while she was sitting there alone.

He started to do an about-face when he saw her. She should have kept her mouth shut and let him leave. But she actually thought she could survive another day controlling her temper, even though he went out of his way to provoke it.

“Shall we play checkers again today?” she asked. “I still haven’t won yet.”

“Nor will you, when you have no clue how to play. You’re still a baby, aren’t you, Jewels? Can’t even master a simple game like checkers yet.”

He wasn’t going to even try to get along with her, she realized. Yesterday, under the watchful eyes of their parents, didn’t count.

“I hate you!” she yelled him.

He laughed bitterly. “You’re too young to even know what that means, you silly chit. But I know it well.”